The Origin and Services of the 3rd (Montreal)

""CHAPTER IV.ON SERVICE DURING THE FENIAN RAIDS.HE year 1866 will ever be memorable inthe annals of the CanadianMilitia. It was the first test of the militia as it practically existsto-day. For some years the Fenian Brotherhood, an organizationostensibly established to wrest Ireland from the British Crown byforce of arms, had been very active in America, the immediateobject of the movement in the States being avowedly to captureCanada and make it the base of operations against the mother country. Manypoor people were led by patrioticdevotion to contribute funds, but there isnot the slightest doubt whatever that many of those who joinedthe movement wereactuated by more sordid motives. The peaceful homes and prosperous businesscentres of the loyal British colony would, they fondly hoped, provide rich spoil forthe invading armies of the "Irish Republic".The termination of the Americancivil war gave a tremendous impetus to the movement, for it threw many men ofvarious races, trained to the use of arms, on the country, without any means ofearning a livelihood. The movement against Canada appeared to be reaching aclimax during the winter of 1866, and it was announced with much swaggeringand bravado that the invasion of Canada would take place on St. Patrick s day.The Canadian volunteer militia corps quietly drilled away to preparefor thethreatened trouble, but nothing occurred until the 3ist of May when a force ofabout nine hundred men under General O Neil crossed from Black Rock andlanded a little below Fort Erie on the Niagara frontier. June and this force wasmet at Ridgeway by a force of militia consisting of the sQueen Own Rifles ofToronto and the i3th of Hamilton, and an action took place which resulted inthe killing of a number of the volunteers, and their retirement, the Feniansmaking no attempt, however, to follow. The same night O Neil s force recrossedthe river into American territory.It was ostentatiously given out that one of the first things the Feniansintended to do was to capture Montreal. Camps of Fenians were established in allthe American cities near the frontier, and drilling went regularly along, but thewould-be invaders thought better of it,and contented themselves with demonstrating.42